Dr. Tomio Iwamoto is Curator Emeritus of our Ichthyology Department, and my good friend and flyfishing buddy.  He is a veteran of GG I and GG II and has already published two scientific papers as a result of these expeditions. He has also worked with São Tomé and Príncipe fisheries people in deepwater trawling around the islands (see Shipboard Discoveries….June 2010 blog).  During GG VI he wants to visit as many local fishing villages as he can on both islands to see what the most commonly caught fishes are.  His goal is to produce a popular guide for the fishermen themselves! This will not be a scientific publication.

This from a posting by

VirtualMuseum Oftrinidadandtobago , which has a Facebook  page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002239346760

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GRAVE OF HARRY DARLING, 

ST. STEPHEN’S CHURCHYARD, PRINCES TOWN. 

TRINIDAD

THE FOLLOWING IS THE STORY OF A GREAT AND FORGOTTEN MAN

There are good men and there are great men. Unfortunately, these are often the first to be cast aside, they whose memories and the works with which they benefitted humanity. If you asked any native of Princes Town or Trinidad for that matter, WHO WAS HARRY DARLING? Most would stare and others would descend into the twitter of a moron ‘kee-kyah-kyah’ Yet, in his long and prosperous lifetime, Harry Bourne Darling of Lothians Estate near Princes Town did more for the colony than many a shiftless politician (including one current Princes Town politico who apparently prides himself on being a Percy Sledge lookalike) has done since. Born in Dublin Ireland around 1813, little is known of Darling’s origins save that by 1840 he was working in the employ of William Eccles at Les Efforts Estate, near San Fernando. Eccles was a dynamic and foresighted man , founding the island’s first railway (the Cipero Tramroad) around 1847 and later the St. Mary’s Orphanage in Tacarigua for the children of Indian Indentured Immigrants who had been left without parents through disease, overwork and the brutal wife-murders common among these people. Darling saved and was able to acquire the extensive Lothians estate near the old Spanish Mission of Savanna Grande, an area known for its pastoral beauty and rolling hills. Here , he set about working feverishly to build up a sugar plantation and repair the works. His efforts were rewarded and Lothians soon became a profitable enterprise and among the largest employers of indentured labour in the island. Following the example of Eccles, Darling opened at his own expense, a school for the Indian children of his estate, breaking with the norm of other estate owners in putting the children to work in the weeding gangs of the estate. This was a full five years or so before the arrival of Rev. John Morton in 1868 and the commencement of the Presbyterian Canadian Mission to the Indians (CMI). Darling, through the Anglican church , sent to India for J. Aaron, formerly Habah Chunder Dass Dutt of Calcutta, a catechist who could teach and relate to the Indians. The school was described thus in 1864:

“Whilst this good work was going on in the North of the Island, in the

South Mr. Darling was working in the same direction by the maintenance on

his Estate of an Indian School for Coolie Children, to which he has recently

added a Catechist from India for the instruction of the adults. Most affecting

is it to hear the little Hindoo children, whose ordinary language is still that

of their native land, rehearse distinctly their little hymns in English, with

verses from the Holy Scripture, or answer simple questions in Bible History,

or on Christian truth, or repeat in their own language the Christian Creed and

the prayer of our Lord. The Lothians School has 24 schoolars of whom 21

are Hindoo.”

Such were the good works of Darling, that he was known as the ‘Squire’ of Savanna Grande, being a man famous for his deep sense of charity, humanity and goodwill. This was the exception rather than the norm among the Naparima sugar planters and really made him a legend in his own time. His home and its grounds were an example of tropic elegance and entertained many a distinguished guest. In 1869, the English writer, Charles Kingsley and his friend, Governor Sir Arthur Gordon visited Savana Grande via the Cipero Tramroad and overnighted with Darling. Kingsley was immediately taken with his gracious host and his magnificent abode, writing thus:

“. Being, happily for me, in the Governor's suite, I had opportunities

of seeing- the interior of the island which an average traveller could not have ; and I looked forward with interest to visiting new settlements in the forests of the interior, which very few inhabitants of the island, and certainly no strangers, had as yet seen. Our journey began by landing on a good new jetty, and being transferred at once to the tramway which adjoined it. A truck, with chairs on it, as usual here, carried us off at a good mule-trot ; and we ran in the fast-fading light through a rolling hummocky country, very like the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, or the neighbourhood of Waterloo, save that as night came on, the fireflies flickered everywhere among the canes, and here and there the palms and ceibas stood up, black and gaunt, against the sky. At last we escaped from our truck, and found horses waiting, on which we floundered, through mud and moonlight, to a certain hospitable house and found a hungry party, who had been long waiting for a dinner worth the waiting. It was not till next morning that I found into what a charming place I had entered overnight. Around were books, pictures, china, vases of flowers, works of art, and all appliances of European taste, even luxury : but in a house utterly un European. The living rooms, all on the first floor, opened into each other by doorless doorways, and the walls were of cedar and other valuable woods, which good taste had left still unpapered. Windowless bay windows, like great port-holes, opened from each of them into a gallery which ran round the house, sheltered by broad sloping eaves. The deep shade of the eaves contrasted brilliantly with the bright light outside : and contrasted too with the wooden pillars which held up the roof, and which seemed on their southern sides white-hot in the blazing sunshine. What a field was there for native art \ for richest ornamentation of these pillars and those beams. Surely Trinidad, and the whole of northern South America, ought to become some day the paradise of wood-carvers, who, copying even a few of the numberless vegetable and animal forms around,
may far surpass the old wood-carving schools of Burmah and Hindostan. And I sat dreaming of the lianes which might be made to wreathe the pillars; the flowers, fruits, birds, butterflies, monkeys, kinkajous, and what not, which might cluster about the capitals, or swing along the beams. Let men who have such materials, and such models, proscribe all tawdry and poor European art—most of it a bad imitation of bad Greek, or worse Renaissance—and trust to Nature and the facts which lie nearest them. But when will a time come for the West Indies when there will be wealth and civilization enough to make such an art possible ? Soon, if all the employers of labour were like the gentleman at whose house we were that day, and like some others in the same island. And through the windows and between the pillars of the gallery, what a blaze of colour and light. The ground-floor was hedged in, a few feet from the walls, with high shrubs, which would have caused unwholesome damp in England, but were needed here for shade. Foreign Crotons, Dracaenas, Cereuses, and a dozen more curious shapes—among them a " cup-tree," with concave leaves, each of which would hold water. It was said to come from the East, and was unknown to me. Among them, and over the door, flowering, creepers tangled and tossed, rich with flowers ; and beyond them a circular lawn (rare in the West Indies), just like an English one, save that the shrubs and trees which bounded it were hothouse plants. A few Carat-palms^ spread their huge fan-leaves among the curious flowering trees ; other foreign palms, some of them very rare, beside them ; and on the lawn opposite my bedroom window stood a young Palmiste, which had been planted barely eight years, and was now thirty-eight feet in height, and more than six feet in girth at the butt. Over the roofs of the outhouses rose scarlet Bois immortelles, and tall clumps of Bamboo reflecting blue light from their leaves even under a cloud ; and beyond them and below them to the right, a park just like an English one carried stately trees scattered on the turf, and a sheet of artificial water. Coolies, in red or yellow waistcloths, and Coolie children, too, with nothing save a string round their stomachs (the smaller ones at least), were fishing in the shade. To the left, again, began at once the rich cultivation of the rolling cane-fields, among which the Squire had left standing, somewhat against the public opinion of his less tasteful neighbours, tall Carats, carrying their heads of fan-leaves on smooth stalks from fifty to eighty feet high, and Ceibas some of them the hugest I had ever seen. Below in the valley were the sugar-works ; and beyond this half-natural, half-artificial scene, rose, some mile off, the lowering wall of the yet untouched forest. It had taken only fifteen years, but fifteen years of hard work, to create this paradise.”

  In a time when harsh managers, owners and overseers dominated , Darling was a gentleman and father to all. Usually when devastating fires swept the pre-harvest canefields of the Naparimas, the estates which suffered the most were those with brutal management …..labourers would make half-hearted attempts to save the crop or none at all, caring nought if the estate went bankrupt, one master being as bad as another . Not a few of these fires were maliciously set to ruin hard-hearted managers. Darling’s kindness was well repaid when in 1868 forest fires raged on Lothians Estate all hands were on deck in a valiant but futile attempt at saving what the master had taken so long to build. Kingsley recounts the story thus :

“And only the summer before all had been well-nigh swept away again. During the great drought the fire had raged about the woods. Estate after estate around had been reduced to ashes. And one day our host's turn came. The fire burst out of the woods at three different points. All worked with a will to stop it by cutting traces. But the wind was wild ; burning masses from the tree-tops were hurled far among the canes, and all was lost. The canes burnt like shavings, exploding with a perpetual crackle at each joint. In a few hours the whole estate, works, Coolie barracks, Negro huts, was black ash ; and the house only, by extreme exertion, saved. But the ground had scarcely cooled when replanting and rebuilding commenced; and now the canes were from ten to twelve feet high, the works nearly ready for the coming croptime, and no sign of the fire was left, save a few leaflesstrees, which we found, on riding up to them, to be charred at the base. And yet men say that the Englishman loses his energy in a tropic climate.”

Rebuild they did, and when Kingsley and Governor Gordon sojourned with Darling, they had another touching example of the Squire’s paternal affection which is described as follows:

 “We had a charming Sunday there, amid charming society, down even to the dogs and cats ; and not the least charming object among many was little Franky, the Coolie butler's child, who ran in and out with the dogs, gay in his little cotton shirt, and melon-shaped cap, and silver bracelets, and climbed on the Squire's knee, and nestled in his bosom, and played with his seals ; and looked up trustingly into our faces with great soft eyes, like a little brown guazu-pita fawn out of the forest. A happy child, and in a happy place”

The following day, Kinglsey and Governor Gordon rode into the village and met with the masses. There again, they met with signs of the love and respect Squire Darling’s people had for him, since not one uttered a bad word against the old Irishman. This was amazing since Governor Gordon was widely famous as a man of the people. He had broken the influence of the tyrannical and corrupt Attorney General, Chas. Wm. Warner who had dominated the island since 1844 and opened up fertile crown lands for sale to the landless. In many areas he visited, Gordon was besieged by people crying for justice and gave them thus. ….that is , except at Savanna Grande where the scene was described as follows:

“On the Monday morning there was a great parade. All day Coolies were to come up to see the Governor; and after breakfast a long line of dark people arrive on the lawn, the women in their gaudiest muslins, and some of them in cotton velvet jackets of the richest colours. The Oriental instinct for harmonious hues, and those at once rich and sober, such as may be seen in Indian shawls, is very observable even in these Coolies, low-caste as most of them are. There were bangles and jewels among them in plenty ; and as it was a high day and a holiday, the women had taken out the little gold or silver stoppers in their pierced nostrils, and put in their place the great gold ring which hangs down over the mouth, and is considered by them, as learned men tell us it was by Rebekah at the well, a special ornament. The men stood by themselves ; the women by themselves ; the children grouped in front ; and a merrier, healthier, shrewder looking party I have seldom seen. Complaints there were none. All seemed to look on the Squire as a father, and each face brightened when he spoke to them by name. But the great ceremony was the distributing by the Governor of red and yellow sweetmeats to the children out of a huge dishlield up by the Hindoo butler, while Franky, in a long nightshirt of crimson cotton velvet, acted as aide-de-camp, and took his perquisites freely. Each of the little brown darlings got its share, the boys putting them into the flap of their waistcloths, the girls into the front of their veils ; and some of the married women seemed ready enough to follow the children's example ; some of them, indeed, were little more than children themselves.”

 Darling was also a benefactor of the Canadian Mission to the Indians , giving to Rev. John Morton, both lands and money for the establishment of a manse, chapel and school at Savana Grande, which is now known as St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. In 1880, Darling hosted royalty, and that of the finest, when the two grandsons of Queen Victoria , Princes Albert and George (later King George V) visited Trinidad as midshipmen aboard the HMS Bacchante. The Princes travelled to Savanna Grande via the Cipero Tramroad, where they were waylaid by the rector of St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, the Rev. J.G Knight, who begged Their Majesties to indulge him and an adoring crowd by planting two small poui trees near the chapel- still to be seen today- , which the Princes were happy to do. The name of the village was changed to Princes Town. They then proceeded to the mud volcanoes of the Devil’s Woodyard on Hindustan Estate, stopping on the return journey to be entertained by ‘Squire’ Darling which Prince Albert recorded thus:

 “Thence we rode back up through the wood again and on to the open road, where there was some beautiful scenery, to Mr. Darling's (the "old squire's"), whose house is, with its elaborate wood- work, so well described in At Last, to luncheon ; after which saw his well- cared-for coolies, all dressed alike, what little dress there is, performing their native sword exercise and doing tumbling and other acrobatic feats on the lawn ; but soon had to leave and hurry back to Princes Town in order that we might get down to San Fernando before dark”

Even though a very old man, Harry Darling’s charity and hospitality never dimmed and in 1892, he hosted a wife of a Canadian Presbyterian missionary who wrote:

“As kind friends had invited us to visit their Cacao estate near the Montserrat Hills, we returned to Princestown by the Cipero tramway, which took us through eight miles of sugar estates. Rev. Mr. Macrae was on hand to meet us. Thanks to the kind hearted Mr. H. B. Darling, who made a gift to our Mission, of a large part of his beautifully situated property for the "Manse", and the adjoining buildings and grounds. Though an Episcopalian he has ever shown the deepest interest in our Missionaries. We feel very grateful to Mr. Darling and the Doctor for their kindness to us, and we will not forget the many enjoyable drives, in the large comfortable ' Victoria", and the exquisitely arranged flowers he sent in to us during our stay”

H.B Darling, full of years and good works, died in 1897 aged 84, being given a long existence which he used to great purpose. A huge crowd gathered at Lothians House where his remains were sorrowfully conveyed to the St. Stephen’s Anglican church , being laid to rest under a simple marble marker. The Rev. MacRae of the Canadian Mission remarked in his diary

“The passing of the estimable Mr. Darling Esq. has created a discernable void in the society of the Naparimas, not only for his munificence and charitable nature, but in the loss of his deep goodness of soul for which Almighty God hath reclaimed him”

Lothians Estate passed into the holdings of the Colonial Company , the owners of Usine Ste. Madeline and the largest sugar concern in the British Empire. The home which was sanctuary and salon to prince and pauper was demolished in the 1930s. Darling’s gravestone, in the unkempt St. Stephen’s churchyard, fell into dereliction and was lost for decades , before being restored by Clark and Battoo’s Funeral Home in the 1980s in a rare example of public preservation, worthy of the memory of a man who did so much and is now forgotten. The gravestone, seen here, reads:

 “IN LOVING MEMORY OF HARRY BOURNE DARLING, FORMERLY OF THE LOTHIANS ESTATE . HE WAS BORN IN DUBLIN AND DIED AT PRINCES TOWN ON 9TH DEC. 1897 AT AN ADVANCED AGE. By grace ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves , it is the gift of God . Eph. II .8”

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